Monday, August 29, 2011

As I posted earlier this week, I'm getting a little burned out and looking forward to the end of the season. My private HIM is in 5 weeks then Ill take a little break and re-evaluate the situation. I've had two other people say they want to race with me and a friend say he wants to man the aid station (read - drink beer in my driveway and heckle us :-)). If all goes well, SuperKate and Mike will be joining me. I met Kate when I picked up a friend to take to a 1/2 marathon and he said "hey, mind if we give another friend a ride?". I met Mike on BT then we met up with some other BTers at the Carlyle, Il Oly this year.

I'm not artistic at all but wanted to make some shirts for the race. I need to order this week so if anyone wants to re-design it for me, have at it. Before I show my non-artistic shirt, I have to show the ugliest shirt I've received at a tri. It just so happens, it was also at Carlyle.

someone on twitter said this shirts looks like someone puked on it :-)

So mine is a simple long sleeve white tech tee from Voler. Their website shows it as short sleeve, but I'll order long sleeves.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

After missing two days of training because life is busy (and I was feeling a little lazy), I started wondering if all this training is worth it. I skipped one swim, one bike, and one run the last two days and as a result I had time to eat dinner with my family one night, sleep in an extra hour one day, and volunteer one evening. It was a nice change of pace. Don't get me wrong, I would still need to do something to keep the weight in check and the heart healthy, but I wouldn't need to do quite as much.

My volume so far this year is good for me. I've averaged 6.7 hours of training per week over the first 34 weeks for a total of:

Bike:129h 13m 33s - 2037.91 Mi

Run:70h 42m 38s - 409.18 Mi

Swim:28h 42m 22s - 60380.84 Yd

6.7 hours doesn't sound like much but if you include getting workout stuff together, cool down time, putting workout stuff away, showering, etc, that probably adds 30-45 minutes to every workout which adds 2-3 hours per week for a total of 9-10 hours.

My volume chart varies all over the place due to race, recovery and vacation schedules.

Funny, while typing this I was also going to mention my house is a mess and so is my yard so I would have time for both of those things. Truth be told, if I back off on the exercise, I will fill the time in with something I enjoy and neither house work nor yard work fall into that category :-).

This is something I will be pondering over the next couple of months as I decide whether or not to do a full Ironman next year, stick with HIMs, go back to Sprints and or Olys, go just to running, or whatever. I'm still doing my private HIM October 2nd, then taking a week off.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

If you follow me on Twitter or BT, you know I bonked on my long ride last Sunday then broke a spoke and called the SAG wagon. I dropped my wheel off Sunday at my LBS and didn't get it back until Friday (after calling Wednesday and again Friday). I love my LBS, but the service is either immediate or a little slow. Good excuse for buying some new wheels and making these a back up :-).

Anyway, I had two rides planned during the week and no road bike. Perfect excuse to dust off the mountain bike and hit the single track.

We have some great trails just 10 minutes from my house that were built by the Gateway Off-road Cyclists . Years ago, I use to bike off road a couple times a week and loved it. I hadn't ridden my mtb for a few years and actually looked forward to it. When I started the ride, I felt like I was riding one of those Harley choppers with really tall handlebars and sitting straight up. Totally different than a roadie with aero bars. I made it out to the trails and took a few pics.

My off ride bike handling skills and confidence are gone. I kept my shoes unclicked in 90+ percent of the time. It didn't help that I saw no one on either ride. It was actually kind of spooky.

The vegetation was pretty thick and touching both my legs at several places. I'm surprised I don't have poison ivy already. I used to get it routinely back when I went off road routinely.

Brings back memories. Back in the late 90's a friend and I would bike after work on an abandon trail (that has now been revived by GORC) in Highland Illinois. We strapped bow saws to the back of our bike frame and when we came across a downed tree, we would clear it. One time I had three flats in the span of 5 minutes due to thorns. I was changing/patching tubes while my friend Chris was trying to keep the thousands of mosquitoes flying around off my back. Frantic back then, funny now.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Before I get started, check out this cool cloud pic I took when leaving church tonight.

The details are coming together for the half distance tri from my house October 2nd. Lap swim at the Y starts at 11 am, so that will be the race start time. If you plan to race, let me know and I'll get you a free one day pass.

The Y pool is 25 yards so we'll do 42 laps (84 lengths). You can do another half a length if you want to hit 2112 yards instead of 2100. After the swim we'll run the 1/2 mile back to my house and hop on our bikes for two 26.6 mile loops.

bike loop

You can do the loop in either direction. From experience, I suggest counter clockwise if the wind is from the South or West and clockwise if it is from the North or East. I can take pictures at all the turns if anyone besides me is going to race. Let me know. Two loops only ends up being 53.2 miles so we'll take on one 2.5 mile run loop to get up to 55.7.

The run course will be a 5 loop course so the aid station can be in my garage or front yard. There is one steep hill so I recommend running clockwise so you run downhill on the steep part. There is a sweet 11.4 mile loop from my house I can set you up with if you want to carry your own nutrition.

run loop

So the total distance is

0.5 mile run

1.2 mile swim

0.5 mile run

55.7 mile bike

12.5 mile run

for a total of 70.4. Perfect!

Dinner will be around 7 pm. I figure the race will take me about 6 hours, maybe a little longer because I probably won't push as much as a normal race. Right now I'm thinking bacon wrapped fillets and spiced red potatoes but I'm open for suggestions.

On an semi-related note, I won a blog contest a while back by predicting Kurt @ Becoming an Ironman's HIM race time within 8 seconds! I predicted each leg within 2 minutes as well. Kurt sent me an assortment of nutrition to try and it arrived this week. This was very cool because I'm still pretty new to endurance racing/training and like to try different nutrition. I've been wanting to try Gu Roctane, GU Brew and Cliff Shot Gel so thanks Kurt!

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Vacation on Santa Rosa Island (Navarre, FL) was fabulous! We spent a lot of time visiting friends, relaxing, swimming in the ocean, eating sea food and watching shark week.

Besides the normal routine, the girls made it out for a jet ski ride. Sara is a crazy driver, jumping her own wake full speed and flipping the jet ski at one point. Cheryl was hanging on for dear life. I have no idea where she gets it :-). Hopefully she didn't inherit my poor backing up skills too :-).

I took the boys on a helicopter ride. I remember my grandma paying for my sister and I to go on one when we were little and it's something I'll never forget. This was only my second helicopter ride and Josh and his friend Cody's first. They were a little nervous, so I calmed their fears with some basic questions like "what happens if we get struck by lightning?" and "do you think you can swim to shore?". My favorite was "I can't hear the helicopter, do you think they crashed?". The boys weren't deterred and we had a blast. We even saw a couple hammer head sharks (just off shore) from the air.

Our condo was in the high rise 2nd from the right

The pier you could see looking left out of our condo

Wavy buildings caused by heat? rotor wash? or proof we are in the matrix?

I didn't see our tent while flying over but did after the fact.

Training wise, I planned to go on a couple runs and greatly exceeded my expectations. The first full day in Florida I went for a run early in morning and that set the stage for the rest of the week. By 10 every night I was really tired (the heat was brutal) so I went to bed early which led to me getting up early and running. I ended up running seven days in a row for the first time ever and hitting a 30 mile run week for the first time ever as well. Neither were a goal of the trip, so that was pretty cool. I did have a goal of a 1.5 hour run but the heat was just too much. The heat index was over 100 for just about every run. Even when I made it out before 7, the humidity was 100%.

Yesterday we I drove straight through 765 miles. I had plenty of offers for Cheryl or Sara to drive, but I love driving and have trouble sleeping if someone else is driving, so I might as well drive. All I need is good tunes, sun flower seeds and caffeine and I'm all set. Hopefully we will be fortunate enough to go again next year.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

I've tried post this twice now and have had issues hoping on the neighbor's Wi-Fi so I'll re-write it and post it in the next couple days. Short recap, vacation was awesome! 765 miles of driving tomorrow and we'll be home. I have a bunch of pics to post but will wait until I have a real internet connection again (instead of using my phone).